Spiffy:

Iffy:

Tecmo's Ryan Arbogast and John Inada stopped by our offices yesterday to show off a few more of the new bits and pieces added to their seminal ninja combat game Ninja Gaiden Sigma. While a lot of the gameplay seems unchanged, the retooled graphics easily eclipse anything seen in Ninja Gaiden Black and the newly added levels featuring the gorgeous and talented demon hunter Rachel deliver both eye candy and extreme difficulty.

Ninja Scroll Roll

Additions are almost immediately noticeable in the second chapter of the game. Where Ryu Hayabusa (protector of the Dragon Sword and main protagonist of the Ninja Gaiden series) would ordinarily receive an unpleasant beatdown via pre-rendered cutscene, you'll now have the opportunity of fighting your way through the flaming ninja village to ultimately get yourself bludgeoned by a demon samurai boss at the end of the level. The end result is the same as it's always been, but this time you'll at least have the illusion that you could possibly win (securing the Dragon Sword and pretty much ending the game right there).

Later on, in chapter six, Ryan demonstrated how you will seamlessly jump into using Rachel instead of Ryu. This dollish demon hunter uses a giant hammer-scythe in a variety of acrobatic moves, our favorite (and Ryan's) being a quick flip over the back of an enemy followed by a wicked decapitation maneuver performed by catching an evil demon's neck in the bladed crook of the hammer and yanking with ruthless ferocity. Rachel has also been retuned since the release of the demo over PlayStation Network so that she is now a little faster and more powerful than before.

Where Ryu's accessories come in the form of armbands, Rachel opts for more decorative earrings to boost her stats. Their karma and essence pools are kept separate, however, so anything earned with Ryu will be useful only to him while Rachel racks up her own cache of currency. Also, in contrast to Ryu's variety of costumes (cloth ninja clothes, armor and demon form), Rachel can earn new hair styles to alter her appearance. Even Rachel's titles are different (given at the end of each level to rate your performance) with Novice Demon Hunter as the Ninja Dog analog and Common, Veteran and Legendary Demon Hunter rounding out the rest.